Couture is fine, Galiardi says he’s ready and McLellan on taking another stick to the head

Logan Couture was back on the practice ice Tuesday after catching a puck to his torso in the third period and sitting out the end of Monday night’s 5-1 victory over Colorado. After the game, Couture had said it was just a precaution. But at this point of the season with tight-lipped hockey players, you never know what injuries are serious and which are not.

“There was only nine minutes left in a 4-1 game,” Couture said. “The doctors looked at me and saw that everything was good. There really was no point in pushing me back out there.”

In fact Couture felt good enough that he could joke about the play, where he took a shot from Joe Thornton.

“It was a good thing that it was a Jumbo shot,” Couture said. “But I better not say anything about his shot or he’ll stop shooting.”

Thornton was getting in his own one-liners as well.

When asked if he had to apologize for Couture, he said: “Oh, no. That’s part of the job when you’re in front of the net.” But then he added, seriously, “Of course you don’t want to hurt anybody on your own team.”

Less funny is how the Sharks, despite their three-game winning streak, haven’t gotten that much out of Couture of late. He leads the team with 30 goals, but Couture also has a minus-6 rating over the last six games.

“That’s a tough stat,” Couture said. “Obviously you want to be on the ice for more goals scored than what you’re giving up. That’s something that our line needs to change.”

One person who isn’t worried is coach Todd McLellan.

“Plus-minus over a full 82 games reflects your play,” McLellan said. “But over short periods, you can be the benefactor of bad luck. We gave up an empty-net goal and he had a minus for that. We evaluate every game and we believe that Cooch is doing just fine.”

*** Four players had maintenance days on Tuesday: Marty Havlat, Michal Handzus, Brent Burns and Ryane Clowe. McLellan said nothing should be read into them not skating and all will be available Wednesday against Anaheim.

But winger TJ Galiardi, who has been out since March 15 with an upper-body injury, said after practice that he’s ready to return to the lineup.

“I feel good,” Galiardi said. “Coach asked me how I felt I told him that I want to play. It’s been a little frustrating being out, but it was nothing that I could control. You can’t help the team when you can’t even bend over.”

His return will give McLellan another choice at forward. But it also presents a challenge. The Sharks’ bottom two lines have begun to click.

“We’ve got some healthy options now,” McLellan said. “We’ve had that for awhile now among the defensemen. Now we’ll have two or three forwards we can draw on as well. We do have depth. But we’ve stuck with a lineup that’s won us games, and we’ll likely continue to do that. That makes it easy on the guys who are playing and really hard on the ones who aren’t. Some of them are veteran, high-end players who have been in the league a long time. And it’s not an easy thing to go through.”

*** You may have noticed that Monday night McLellan took a stick to the head — again. This time it was Thornton accidentally catching McLellan during a shift change.

But unlike earlier this season when McLellan missed three games with concussion-like symptoms after getting whacked, this was just a glancing blow.

“It’s just work hazard I guess,” McLellan said. “But it was no big deal. It wasn’t anywhere near what the first one was. Those can happen. It just goes to show how fast the game is moving and maybe I need to start paying a little more attention. I knew right away that I was fine. It just kind of stunned me a little bit. But I was fine.”

Yep, we need to be in a hurry to trade away the #3 playoff goal scorer among active players in the league. That’ll help.

Carcharodon_carcharias

The Ducks will be looking to hurt someone tonight, desperation mode is in effect.

Doug H

its very rare to see elite for elite trades in this league. most of the time youll see an elite player traded to start a rebuild. something that our sharks GM has made no necessary. the way he runs the organization keeps the team competitive, hes not blind to the need for a prospect pool, which ive illustrated above is pretty well stocked atm.

coyle/connely/sgarbossa. its hard to part with that kind of potential, but it was necessary.

seto/heatley really made the wild a lot better, right? they are both marginally better than clowe this year. clowe actually has more points than seto right now, in his worst year yet.

havlat who has only played 33 games has 22 points. seto at 63 has 33…heatley at 76 has 48. oh and burns a defenseman has 36 in 75 games. the trade improved this team. and while it sucks havlat suffered an injury, we got to see tommy wingels show his incredible potential, havlat hasnt had a major injury in 3 years, there was no reason to think that would happen.

in the meantime marleau is quietly having ANOTHER 60 pt season. is he a catalyst for sharks success, no. which is why he doesnt wear the C. is he paid 2 mill too much. probably. but that 2 mill wouldnt net us anything that would drastically improve us. depending on who we sign we will probably have cap space regardless.

a few on here want to trade thornton as well. but they are picking on marleau relentlessly because thornton is beasting it right now. they praise mcginn for a game with 0 pts and a -4 but would ask a player to be traded from the sharks if they had a similar game.

buddy elf gotta quote you again “consistently inconsistent” just like the sharks you hate.

dz

“the PO’s should be automatic with the “talent” on this team. At least thats what comes from the front office doors at 525 W Santa Clara St.”

Agree with both the sentiment AND the assessment. The talent level is certainly there and only a fool would argue it is not. In that sense this has been a disappointing season, even if they end up with the #3 seed. That said, given the parity in the league, you have to look at WHY it has happened and what, if anything, you need to do about it.

To me there are three areas that were major contributors. 2 of them are easily fixable, one is a bit more complex:

1. Mitchell or McGinn were not able to replace Seto as a 7th top 6 forward. This is both a depth and flexibility issue. With that 7th top 6 forward you can move guys like Pavs and Clowe to the 3rd line in certain situations. You can survive stretches of inuries. This was exaggerated greatly by the injury to Havlat.

If they do nothing, all it takes to improve is health up front. If they want to add depth, all it takes is a minor UFA signing of a veteran forward. Had Havlat been healthy all year round, I think the 3rd seed and division title would have been a lock, despite these three problem areas.

2. Similar issue on D. Solid top 4, nice depth players, but like Mitchell and McGinn, Demers or Braun did not develop further. They lack that 5th top-4 d-man. This is a harder position to fill because of both money and scarcity as teams at the floor were sucking up these guys at high prices.

But, the caps is supposed to go up (new CBA though may be an issue) so this should be addressable either via trade (Demers) or smart UFA signing (Stuart with a hometown discount wish inserted here).

3. Sigh. The killer. Goaltending. Neemo showed no improvement. He is still a rebound machine and technically inconsistent (or is that technically non-existent). Greiss was not able to push him. Nitty disintegrated with injuries.

This one is easy to change if you want to eat salary, but not always easy to fix. Ask Chicago. Or Philly.

The best play right now may be to bring in a true 1b goalie that can really fight Neemo for playing time. Griess has not been it. Nitty might have been if he had been healthy. Harding? Gustaffson? Montoya? Bobrovsky? Or a one year veteran deal even. Vokoun? Giggy?

I think they key is that Neemo alone is NOT the answer to being a CONSISTENT contender. The fix to this however, if not easy.

And yes, you lay all three of these at the feet of DW, the GM. However, none of these are end of the world mistakes that will cause you to have to make major shifts, changes, house cleanings, etc. They do however, especially in net, require the GM to address them.

Doug H

i disagree on your defense assessment. demers had a slump agreed but braun is just fine in that #5 spot. and demers has gained his consistency back down the stretch.

we do lack a #7 tweener type player. though wingels has shown he can fill in when needed. i suppose we couldve went with a similar setup as last year and kept ian white, but i personally dont think hes that good.

so it was an either or scenario to bolster our top 4 blue line or keep 7 top 6 forwards.

and i think it all comes down to our bottom 6. when we have 7 top 6ers you can spread the wealth in the lines in terms of scoring. but the defense was a much higher need and that caused us to have to reconfigure the bottom six, it has cycled a lot throughout the season and unfortunately they havent shared the burden as much as they shouldve.

another thing about playoffs being automatic. and im not pointing it at you or the original comment, but you cant complain about our lack of high draft picks and that we make the playoffs every year since the lockout but no cups. its one or the other, and the draft is a lottery anyway and its entirely possible that it wouldve been this year or the next that we finally made it back into the playoffs if we were focused on drafting high, and off loading our vets.

just a thought.

Sammy

@ #98
“Intelligence is not stepping in the pile of sh*t created in front of you. Simply step around it. Pass the Trolls please…..”

THANK YOU

This blog is turning into some type of weird reality show. MLBSF.. Exposed!
Actually I find the banter pretty entertaining at this point.

Here’s to another win tonight! GSDI

Bob

Watching Murray since his return, he is obviously worried about reinjuring the Adam’s apple. He looks a bit like a Lego defenseman, he moves with his upper body very stiff and may even be deliberately keeping his shoulder blades high for protection. This affects his ability to really muck it up in the corners, slows down his reaction time and cuts down on his physical play.

I certainly can’t blame him, I still cringe just thinking about that injury. i hope that he’ll be able to relax more and get back to his normal game in time for the playoffs.

dz

“so it was an either or scenario to bolster our top 4 blue line or keep 7 top 6 forwards”

Actually, they did neither and chose to use the money to pick up Handzus to solidify the 3rd line center in they way Malhotra did two years ago. Of the three places you had holes, 3rd line center, 7th forward, 5th D, IMHO they chose the right place to spend the money. They had potential answers in the other areas.

Handzus has had an off year, but year in and year out he has been a very good player and I still like the signing. He really is an good all-around player, and even a top shoot-out threat. So, a bit of a down year but I still like this signing.

Braun is okay as a 5th D, but I think they need more that 5th D that can play top-4 when needed. It is kinda how I view Murray, who to me is a bit out of place in the top 4. Murray-Braun I would love to see as the third pairing.

Also, the NHL has changed with the cap. Parity abounds and there is no more longer any kind of excuse for long-term building projects. Any GM worth his salt should be able to reload with at most one non-playoff year. Heck, look at how Philly has reloaded its roster without even a drop out of the playoffs.

While folks may drool at Edmonton’s talent level, I say they have done a piss-poor job to be that bad for that many years in a row in today’s environment.

To me it is all about options and when I look at the Sharks as a whole, I think they pretty much have the assets to take whatever course they want. Not only do they have the assets, they have these assets signed to very cap friendly, cap manageable contracts.

An additional usually seen error is to develop a personal profile with 1 electronic mail and then develop a business web page with a 2nd email log-in due to the fact they do not want their Facebook pals to know they are linked with the business.